G*Park

G*Park is the musique concrète project of Swiss-American artist Marc Zeier, born on 24 July 1954 in Jersey City, New Jersey. He moved with his family to Switzerland in 1961 and eventually settled in the Zürich area, where he developed a practice that sits somewhere between experimental music, sound art, installation and visual art. He has been working under the G*Park name since the early 1980s, although his recorded output has always been relatively sparse.

 
Zeier's approach to sound is strongly connected to field recordings, acoustic phenomena and the transformation of everyday or natural noises. Rather than relying on conventional instruments, he has worked with sounds captured from objects, environments and small physical events, turning them into dense, often very detailed tape and electroacoustic compositions. In an interview, he recalled that his early experiments involved arranging long plastic tubes, placing microphones at one end and producing sounds at the other. His later work became increasingly focused on recording sounds directly on location and reducing them down to their essential acoustic qualities. 

 
The earliest G*Park material dates from 1983, and Zeier eventually gathered his first five tape releases into the '1983-1988+' collection. The original sequence includes 'G*Park 1' (1983/84), 'G*Park 2' (1984/85), 'Anästhesie' (1985/86), 'Ko-Nü' (1987) and 'Zwei Freunde' (1988), followed by a 1991 improvisation with Rudolf Eb.er. The collection was originally reissued as a limited six-CDR box by Tochnit Aleph in 2006 and was remastered by Zeier in 2021. 

 
Zeier also became involved with the Zurich-based Schimpfluch-Gruppe, joining the collective in 1986. The group brought together artists working across noise, performance, sound and experimental art, and its activities became an important part of the Swiss underground experimental scene. Zeier's work with G*Park remained somewhat apart from straightforward noise, concentrating instead on tiny acoustic details and strange combinations of organic, mechanical and environmental sounds. 

 
One of the best-known early G*Park releases is 'Seismogramm', originally issued by Schimpfluch in 1990. The album uses recordings of things such as agitated wires, a tree trunk moving in the wind and the mewing of Zeier's cat, Buxy, assembling them into free-form tape collages. The result is based less on conventional musical development than on magnifying small acoustic events and placing them into unfamiliar relationships. 

 
The 1990s brought further releases including 'Geopod' and 'Yack Park', while Zeier continued to work with installations and visual projects. His later catalogue includes 'Reuters', issued by Tochnit Aleph in 2008, with nine compositions constructed from recordings involving ice, wind, plankton, a whip, a bow, a suitcase and other sources. The album marked a return to recorded G*Park material after a long period of relative silence. 

 
Another major work is 'Gour', a long-form composition built entirely from micro field recordings and natural phenomena. The material includes sounds associated with insects, animals, frozen lakes, trees and other environmental sources. It was released by Tochnit Aleph and reflects Zeier's continuing interest in capturing very small acoustic events and reshaping them through musique concrète techniques. 

 
In 2013, Zeier released 'Sub' through the American label 23five Incorporated. The album was described as a large-scale work of contemporary musique concrète, assembled over several years, and its source material again included recordings of natural and everyday phenomena. Zeier described the idea behind the record as dealing with amorphous conditions that lead toward, or interfere with, recognizable forms and states of being. 

 
G*Park's activities have never been limited to records. Zeier has created sound installations, video works and multimedia projects, often bringing together acoustics, sculpture and scientific observation. His installations have included "Instrument", "Plankton", "Fishing Grounds", "Black Table Music" and "Blackbox", while his sound performances have taken place in venues and festivals in cities including Berlin, London, Bristol, Boston, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Beijing, Zürich and Basel. 

 
There is also a strong connection between Zeier's artistic work and his interest in the natural world. Alongside his activities as a composer, performer and installation artist, he has worked as a plankton fisherman, an unusual profession that has fed directly into projects such as "Plankton" and "Fishing Grounds". His work frequently treats the smallest sounds and physical processes as material for observation and transformation, linking his musical practice with his interests in acoustics, biology and sculpture. 

 
G*Park's discography remains relatively small, but the material stretches across several decades. Alongside the early cassette works and albums such as 'Seismogramm', 'Geopod', 'Yack Park' and 'Reuters', Zeier has issued live and collaborative material including '15', recorded at Berlin's NK in September 2009, as well as collaborations with artists such as Luigi Archetti and Ian Anüll. His work has appeared through labels including Tochnit Aleph, Zabriskie Point, Blossoming Noise, Zelphabet, Banned Production, 23five Incorporated and Helen Scarsdale Agency.